Poisoned Apples of Glass
by Clementive
Summary: [AU]. "Be careful what you wish for." Everything unravels when Captain Neji Hyuuga traps a genie to lift his curse. Instead of three wishes, he sees a glimpse of a future he should have never seen with a woman he can never have. Before he knows it, his freedom may very well come at the price of the death of everyone she loves. NejiTen, NaruIno


_**Summary: "Be careful what you wish for." Everything unravels when Captain Neji Hyuuga traps a genie to lift his curse. Instead of three wishes, he sees a glimpse of a future he should have never seen with a woman he can never have. Before he knows it, his freedom may very well come at the price of the death of everyone she loves.**_

 _ **Before you go any further: This is dark. I'm not going to pretend this is a love story with unicorns because it isn't. This is a remix of some fairytales where everyone is the villain. This is part Robin Hood, where Robin is a heartless woman seeking revenge on the rich; part Snow White, where the poisoned apple is meant for the prince and the evil step-mother is not exactly 'evil' and not exactly a 'step-mother'; part The Beauty and the Beast, where the cursed prince is no prince and the beauty steers clear of her reflection; and part The Hunchback of Notre-Dame, where the Captain of guards is a prince without a title nicknamed the Hunchback. There are also lots of magic, witchcraft, witch hunts, genies, destroyed glass slippers, fairies and political intrigues.**_

 _ **Pairings: NejiTen (main), KankuTen (one-sided), KankuMatsu (mentioned), NaruIno (minor), SasuSaku (minor), ShikaTema (briefly mentioned), Ibiki x OC (minor). There may be others if I see it fit.**_

-X-

 **The Shadow**

 _ **by Clementive**_

-X-

The shadow's new cage was one of bleeding darkness and moist stones.

Captain Neji Hyuuga caught it with a glimpse of light and melted gold, sparkles of the moon caught in their glow.

Since then, every day, its light shrank.

Every day, its cuffs lowered on his fading arms. Soon, they would thud on the ground, revealing its name to whoever would lean in and read it. Aloud. Without beat, like taut chains.

Its existence was reduced to a heavy sigh that bounced back against the grey stones of its prison. Stripped of its light, its remaining magic pulsed only in its cuffs, its movements dragging, halting and twisting with sparks of liquified darkness. It was now a snake on the wall, an angry breath against the cheek of the guards who dared lean in. A bit too close, but too far for it to snatch the light out of their souls leaving them dry, tumbling back. Dead.

And it, free and alive. Almost human. Again. Just like its last mistress intended it to be.

Like every night, the captain of guards sat in front of its jail cell, eyes shining like the slivers of moon kings and queens once exchanged as greetings in its world. The shadow had been freed years ago, left to wandering the world with his last mistress. It wasn't held to wishes and the gold of its world anymore. Yet, it needed light for the waves of this world to stop rippling through its body, for its body to solidify.

"Neji Hyuuga," it drawled out, pressing its face between the iron bars.

Light rained on the pale face of its captor and it wished it could reach out and tug at the dusty glow, swirling it around its touch until it could breathe again, its chest solid and glowing with power. The shadow quivered and narrowed its eyes. If only humans were bound to their names the way its kind was.

"I'll die soon," it whispered, its voice thick with the darkness pooling around him. It watched a flicker on Neji's face. Humans were always so easy to trick. One more step towards it and it would kill him. One more step and it will be free.

"If you don't want to die, give me your name," Neji snapped back and he leaned forward, eyes glowing, lips set in a hard line.

Its laughter skewed the moist whispers of the darkness, part of the shades running down the walls. The shadow could smell the curse off of him; powerful dark magic beating in his chest, hammering its way in his veins before condensing on his forehead. The darkness of his soul alone could suck out all the light in its jail cell.

"Wishes cannot cure you, Neji Hyuuga." It pushed his face harder against the bars, its hands pulling at the bars even though its hold slipped, watery and black. "Nothing can," it lied, easily, lazily, like it had done so many times when words still held power in the wishes it granted.

"I do not wish for one of your wishes, genie."

Instead of the disgust it expected, Neji tugged at something at his side and the silk unfolded itself around the mirror. Slowly, it recoiled from the door, its cuffs rustling against the wooden door, its limbs twisting in the chills running down its immaterial body. It didn't need to read the engraving around the mirror to know it came from its world.

"I wish to possess your true power, the power of your world..." The smirk stretched his lips, a slender finger running across the golden engraving written in its language.

The shadow could almost taste the frozen slippery magic immersing it completely as it delved in the possible futures. Its world lay between the past and the present, always shifting, never certain. The future, his world, was nothing but a dangerous pivot in any fool's life.

The shadow briefly touched its cuffs, hanging on to his last parcels of light that spelled out its name.

"You should be careful what you wish for, Neji Hyuuga," it muttered. "It could become very troublesome for you to know the future."

It heard the silk snapping into the air and it imagined it fell like a tent raised despite the doom brought by a sandstorm; wrinkled and howling with the thickening winds. Then, Neji leaned in, close enough for the shadow to churn, sour and unstable, at the scent of the curse, loud and towering. Yet, he never took the step forward the shadow needed to kill him.

"I need this curse lifted and you _will_ show me how to achieve it."

Its dark ghostly hand still covered its name when the door slammed shut behind the captain, the outside light never reaching him.

 _Shikamaru Nara._

-X-

 _"I could never love you, Tenten."_

The black laces snapped, digging onto her skin until the bodice of her dress sucked the air out of her lungs. Princess Tenten blanched, her moving her fan slowing as she watched the carriage stumbled and then, lunged forward in front of the castle. He didn't bid her farewell, he slipped away pulling at the strings of her heart. And he didn't glance back. And he never loved her.

"You'll see, dear child, King Hiashi's court is lovely at this time of the year. In the mid time, you should stop frowning and fretting. It'll give you wrinkles before your time."

The tea cup clashed against the saucer and Princess Tenten could feel her mother's masked anger thickening, whipping at the air in the room. The coldness drew goosebumps down her spine and she still wouldn't turn away to meet her glance. It wasn't about her frowning and for once, she wished the act wasn't up and reeling for a world of invisible enemies. She wished the walls didn't have ears, the gardens weren't where the spies lurk and this world wasn't one where Prince Kankuro wasn't about to marry another.

She wished she wasn't so angry, her blood simmering in her veins while her heart didn't need to beat. There were simply too many things to wish for and take back, tucked in the farthest corner of her mind. Kankuro had pulled every ounce of anger she had, string by string and there was nothing but a need to set the world ablaze.

"How much of her bosom is showing, Ai?" Lady Morino asked coldly, her blue eyes narrowing at the back of her dress.

"I think enough, Lady Morino," the servant on her left whispered.

Absentmindedly, Tenten looked down at the rich layers of the black skirts that were of the fashion of the North. Her grandfather had dismissed her from the throne room in the morning after telling her that Prince Kankuro was to marry another and she would attend the ceremony. And smile and laugh. And play and sing like a good puppet. Like a good princess. Because she wasn't free of her heart and she needed to remember that. Sending her away at King Hiashi's court for the Commemoration of Peace had been part of her punishment and yet, still part of the pretence that the royal family of the Kingdom of Bisa'a was strong.

"Hn. Keep pulling. Her assets will finally bring her a decent husband if they are showing. Since most of the princes of this continent and beyond will be at the Commemoration of Peace, I think it wise to begin exploiting those assets. Child? Put this fan away and turn around so I can look at you. Unmarried at your age..." She clicked her tongue delicately in the fashion of high-ranked ladies of the court of the Western lands. Fake.

"I will turn away every suitor introduced before me, Mother." She whispered angrily, turning slowly towards her mother.

The carriage was a swaying dark spot in the horizon, almost a mirage, and the tea cup crashed onto the floor.

"Get out, all of you. Now."

Tenten closed her eyes, still fanning herself with a crisped hand, as the hands of the servants released her. Quietly, they brushed by her and curtsied. The laces loosened and it was as if they were taking apart the moment, piece by piece, in rustles of silk and false promises. The stepmother, the mother, her grandfather. Kankuro. She used to think it would always be about him, not she knew she should have felt the strings, the machinations, seen the way his brother and sister disappeared, branded as witches. _Never_. She should have thought of him in terms of never. The fan snapped into two in her grip.

 _"I could never love you, Tenten."_

The moment the door closed behind the servants, the table severed in two. Splinters exploding against the floor. The lamp ceiling swayed and the cold jagged into her skin, the sharp deadly grip of the underworld. Her mother's ghost glided across the floor, the body she occupied previously resting like a disarticulated puppet against the wall. Her icy fingers brushed her cheek and Tenten shuddered watching her mother's eyes gleamed with power and fury.

"Prince Kankuro chose a crown over you. Don't make the mistake of giving him your heart still, Tenten. Don't you dare make the mistake of choosing him over our family."

"I didn't tell him." Her breath came out white and thick and the fingers withdrew from her cheek. She panted, her chest awkward and uncomfortable in the pause that followed. As a ghost, her mother didn't need to blink. Whenever Sora Morino stared at her in her ghost form, Tenten felt herself reflect the same stillness the way no mirror could ever do. No blink, only the cold caress of her eyelashes onto her skin, and there was no heartbeat either.

Princess Tenten was born to be queen, yet she breathed nothing but fire and there were ashes in her lungs.

"He chose a crown over me without knowing who I was."

"It matters not." Her answer was crisped, the words against each other as the ghost slid back towards the corpse on the other side of the room.

Her black translucent hair floated around her head like a crown and Tenten almost threw her own crown. It used to belonged to her; her room, her crown, her tutors, her queendom. If she threw it at her, maybe it would finally made sense, leading the life her mother would have had if she hadn't died. Tenten didn't need to slide from one corpse to the other, but she was unloved because of her. The anger she felt towards Kankuro, she felt it over brittle things that would die because she couldn't. Humans, plants. Everything. They would all bent, cuddled and curled onto themselves until they disappeared and she would have to watch it all. Colourful frame by washed-out frame, turning to crisped black. Ashes. She couldn't die because of her. She felt her body could barely hold all the blame, she felt it boiling in the air, fighting the coldness that crept along her mother's ghost's steps. Between her and her family, her and Kankuro, in her, around her, it never seemed to end.

There was as much fire inside her as there was death around her. She could truly never be loved.

Tenten shifted back towards the window, finally letting the broken fan fall back to her side. It fumed and her hand shook above it. She could set it all ablaze. She stared at it, fingertips hovering. One word and the whole world would surround into flames. She could say yes to the power raising inside her and embrace the world turning to dust. Her black crown would rest for eternity on her head, the rubies boiling with the power she could barely keep hidden now that Kankuro was gone.

"It matters not, child," her mother repeated louder, her dark locks twisting in the air. "The Great Hunt is over, there will be others..." The body sacked against her immaterial form, sparkles of magic hanging like tears in the cold air. "There are always others," she whispered. "They are just men, Tenten. Just foolish men." Shaking her head, she plunged back into the body, the joints snapping back into place until she was once more Lady Morino and her time with her daughter was stolen moments while she pretended to be her stepmother.

"You will be queen and a queen cannot play the part of a puppet, child." The bones of her legs creaked and bent unnaturally as she rose back to her feet.

In a slow motion, Lady Morino smoothed back her blond curls. Her husband had chosen a body for her that was as delicate as her real body had been made of sharp lines and high cheekbones. She remembered his savage grin when he showed her the body, his thick arms crossed over his chest. Death and pain; they had always remained a terrible farce for him. Now, she was plump and blond when she had been petite and black-haired. Until the end, where she laid in a pool of her own blood. Then, her body had been only slippery red, because of one foolish mistake. When she looked at her daughter, she saw the same innocent curve on her red lips that led her to her death. Stiffly, Lady Morino turned her back to her so Tenten couldn't read her expression.

Sora knew how beauty died, one petal at a time, plucked out by the hands of dangerous angry men.

"Remember that: You can never be Kankuro's puppet," she added harshly, her heels clicking with force onto the black marble of the floor. "Now, straighten your back so that we can finish this frivolous dress purchase. King Hiashi will be expecting you in less than a moon time and you need to be ready or you won't survive the Commemoration of Peace." The fake Western accent slipped back into place and her mother took her place back as her stepmother.

Tenten nodded slowly, but it mattered because she spent days and days breathing like mortals did, so that her skin colour wouldn't waver. And her heart pounded loud and strong even if it didn't need to because she loved him more than she could ever love herself and she thought, prayed, hoped it would be enough.

It mattered because she avoided all the mirrors that could reflect exactly what she was.

Faded and worn.

And half-dead.

A witch.

And it was all because of what her parents loved each other too much to let their love turn to ashes when death did them part.

-X-

His crown came at the cost of fingernails caked in blood when he pried it off his late father's hands. There were days where King Hiashi wondered if he would die the same way; his body limb at the feet of a killer with his hand already reaching for his crown. Gold and blood, with copper slitting his throat, just as his story began.

He wondered if his killer would be _her_. That impure woman could change the odds, draw a clean slates on the game of power and crowns. With magic.

King Hiashi tightened his grip on the missive, his jaw quivering as he narrowed his eyes at his nephew in his captain of guard uniform before shifting it swiftly toward the faded tower dividing the horizon. He needed to remember this was the kind of power he possessed: he could make a man and break him and build towers and imprison anyone. He could erase history, rewrite it, whisper angry spiteful words in noble's ears until they snap, reaching for their spears and turning them against one another. Magic didn't stop spears and swords years ago when commoners revolted against nobles. The king made sure every noble with magic was replaced by a man without magic, pure men of the honourable mortal line. The Great Hunt lasted a decade, but it had been rewarding. Mortals were good pawns, malleable with their sins and weaknesses. His hand closed onto his thigh and the twisted corded muscles beneath the cloth, the back of his eyes burning. And they didn't have power over him, they didn't have magic.

They couldn't hurt him.

But she was coming for the Commemoration of Peace and she could draw hope in the blood of those who lost their wealth. He knew some nobles hid healers and sorceress in their estate. Some even dared visit enchanters for potions and spells.

"You promised me you would take care of her."

Letting go of both the missive and his thigh, he snapped his fingers and a servant boy ran to fill his golden cup with wine. The liquid clicked against the gold and Prince Kankuro sighed dramatically, loud enough to draw a grimace of cold disdain on his lips. ' _That fool_ ,' he thought. Every word was an enhanced performance of gestures, a thoughtful step towards submission that hid nothing but ambition. The king would have to dispose of him soon.

"Tenten didn't comply... She learned of my engagement to Princess Matsuri which, of course, ruined everything."

The king slowly turned his glance towards Prince Kankuro. He recognized the cold anger of one who had lost a pawn. He knew the first time he saw the prince that he would slowly grow angry and bitter, his fingers quivering, hovering the invisible strings of power. Terribly envious. Dangerously thirsty for power. His siblings had magic and he did not. So, he hunted them. Even if it tore his kingdom apart. He smirked, his gaze shifting to the wooden box that rest between them.

Kankuro shrugged and shifted, raising to his feet. He began pacing, slowly, controlling each step while the king's white glare followed him, cut him piece by piece. The prince was learning; he didn't wear his heart on his sleeve as he once did. They both knew how this would end, however. Prince Kankuro was at the head of an unstable province that still refused him as king and longed for the return of Prince Gaara, his brother. He needed King Hiashi. He needed power and troops while King Hiashi simply needed a new pawn.

"Princess Tenten is no ordinary princess, Your Majesty. She does not accept her role as a woman and that makes her stubborn and terribly difficult to deal with. Love was not enough to make her flinch."

"Her mother was the same," King Hiashi cut off, and his knuckles whitened around his cup.

"Yet, she loves me," he hissed savagely and his voice echoed in the throne room, bouncing against the crystal of the chandeliers and the heavy curtains of silk and velvet until it faded.

Kankuro looked away first, resuming his pacing, and the king hid his smirk behind his cup. He watched him fidget with his cuffs, suddenly unstable, his emotions boiling at the surface of his skin. He was not a handsome prince, his features too regular, his brown hair too unruly, but his manners charmed women. His voice was deep enough to inspire respect and give him stature. Prince Kankuro remembered approaching Tenten and thinking it would be enough, but she mocked him, a puppet that simply disdained strings. She fell in love with him, eventually, but she never let herself fall into his arms. She was too frivolous, dancing gracefully instead of walking, her neck always exposed from laughter. No man could ever love her freedom, her absence of restraint, as it hid nothing but a murderous coldness he still didn't understand. She didn't flinch when she learned of his engagement to another. She drew a weapon and held it against his neck.

She played him. He was certain of it now, she was not who she pretended to be: she was not impulsive and thoughtless like she appeared. She was cold and calculating.

"It would seem that I will have to take care of her myself, now. You should make yourself scarce, boy, it will not be long before Ibiki Morino senses you are in my company." He nodded at the box, briefly, his eyes searching avidly his face for any trace of weakness. "Don't worry, Prince Kankuro, I'll take good care of your sister."

Stiffly, Kankuro bowed, the blood turning to ice in his veins and his fingers kept pulling at his cuffs when he walked out of the room. Fear lingered in his steps, incrusted in the depth of his movements. The king almost bent down to touch the box before he disappeared from his view.

After the secret passage closed behind Prince Kankuro, the king turned towards his nephew. He was watching the tower masked the fog of the distance too, and the king had the urge to strike him, to play out his curse and say the words that bound Neji to him.

"Do not test my patience, boy," he snapped, his jaw tightening as he rose up. His cane thudded on the floor as he approached his nephew. When he reached him, he leaned in, his mouth inches from his ear. Neji gave up on saving the princess in the tower a long time ago, but his jaw twitched. "Because I could make her pay for your sneaking these books in the tower. How long do you think she would last if I cut through her the way I did you? We agreed this tower wasn't your concern anymore, did we not? Or should I make myself clearer?"

Dully, his white glance shifted towards his and slowly, the king took a step back from him, surveilling the muscles of his jaw working, the nostrils of his long nose flaring almost imperceptibly.

"You requested me here, Your Majesty?" He asked coldly, his glance now on the pots of roses near the window.

"Where were you at night? I called for you, but your rooms were empty."

"I was making rounds, Your Majesty." He answered flatly, but his hand tensed around the handle of his sword.

King Hiashi waved him off impatiently, returning to his seat with difficulty. He shoved his cane at the servant boy and he straightened the missive one more time, before his grip wrinkled it again.

"Let it be whispered at inns where petty criminals meet Crown Princess Tenten of the Kingdom of Bisa'a carries more wealth than should be deemed cautious on this trip." Without glancing at Neji, he handed him the letter that bore King Chao's seal. "Give them her itinerary and one of them is bound to kill her in ways I cannot."

His eyes clouded and there was no tower, just him and his loneliness. His time running out. Green smoke laced his tongue with pressure and he didn't fight it, the word rising, the tightness of his chest. There was no right or wrong, only obedience.

"Is that an order?" He asked involuntarily.

King Hiashi watched his nephew, his hand falling on the muscles of his thigh magic had eaten away, like it would rest on any weakness. He squeezed until he tasted blood and revenge, sour, on his tongue.

"Yes."

There was always a price to power and he never minded that he had sacrificed his nephew to achieve it. Just like Prince Kankuro didn't mind cutting off his sister's witch head to sit on the throne.

Power, after all, was nothing but the most poisonous and delicious fruit.

-X-

 _ **Please take the time to let me know whether I should continue this or not. :)**_


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